{"id":468,"date":"2012-03-16T09:04:46","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T20:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=468"},"modified":"2012-03-16T09:08:23","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T20:08:23","slug":"we-literally-have-a-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=468","title":{"rendered":"We literally have a problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In the early days of the 21st century we literally have a problem.\u00a0 It\u2019s the use \u2013 or, more to the point, the misuse \u2013 of the word literally<\/em>.<\/p>\n

According to a spokesperson for a well-known clothing retailer, a new range of sweaters has been \u2018literally flying out the door\u2019.\u00a0 A woman named Tracey had to \u2018literally jump through hoops\u2019 to get a job.\u00a0 (And, no, the job in question was not with a circus.)\u00a0 While another woman \u2013 also named Tracey \u2013 \u2018literally died\u2019 when she discovered that she had won a competition organised by her local radio station.<\/p>\n

Most careful users of language would agree that literal<\/em> means something like: using words in their usual or primary sense, without metaphor or allegory<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You might be tempted to say: Well, so what?\u00a0 Any normal reader will realise that the sweaters did not really fly out the door on mysterious wings.\u00a0 Tracey Number One did not really jump through hoops.\u00a0 And Tracey Number Two did not really die.\u00a0 To object to the use of literally in these three examples is just out-dated pedantry.\u00a0 But is it?<\/p>\n

It is hard to think of another single word that can substitute for literally.\u00a0 Exactly, precisely, really, truly<\/em> \u2026 these all go part of the way.\u00a0 But when you literally mean literally, literally is probably the only word there is.\u00a0 And it\u2019s certainly the best word there is.<\/p>\n

Misusing it will, in time, rob us of a very useful word.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s literally time to stop misusing literally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the early days of the 21st century we literally have a problem.\u00a0 It\u2019s the use \u2013 or, more to the point, the misuse \u2013 of the word literally. According to a spokesperson for a well-known clothing retailer, a new … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions\/477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}